Everybody
reading this blog would certainly know about T-Bone Walker (born in 1910 at
Linden, Tx), one of the true originator of the electric blues guitar and of the
so-called West Coast blues as well. His influence has been far and wide and can
be still strongly heard today.

After
merely 10 years of successful hits and perpetual touring, the mid-50's are lean
years for T-Bone. He has left Capitol for Imperial with great expectations but
despite the constant excellence of his music, hits are few. His former
successful formula (languid tempos, sentimental songs, ethereal jazzy atmosphere)
sounds a bit old-fashioned for an African-American record market listening more
and more to muscular R'n'R and burgeoning Soul. Like so many 1940's R&B
stars T-Bone seems to be a has been for the new generations.

T-Bone's
life is also hectic: a whirl of whiskey, gambling and women that leaves him
financially ruined and in a bad health shape altogether. He faces a severe
stomach surgery that certainly won't prevent him for hard drinking but that
forces him to strongly slow down his activities. In 1955, he must disband his
orchestra and has to hire local musicians for gigs and less and less frequent
studio sessions.

While
the 1960's begin, his situation seems hopeless. But a true Texan, a skilled
horse rider, he will nonetheless be able to saddle again! While the blues
revival is more into Delta or Chicago deep bluesmen, T-Bone will be one of the
very few jazzy West Coast bluesmen to catch on this new train. He is from the
first European AFBF in 1962. A spectacular showman and a great entertainer, he
succeeds to win the European audiences. He becomes even the godfather of a
British blues-rock group simply called ... The T-Bones (with a young Stan Webb
on guitar). He will tour regularly Europe during the 1960's and early 1970's,
drawing a faithful audience, recording many sessions as a leader or even as a
lead guitarist (for Jay Mc Shann for instance). In the USA, thanks to producer
Bob Thiele, he manages to resurface with several excellent records that mix his
cool jazzy sound with funk and boogaloo arrangements provided by top-notch
backing musicians like Lloyd Glenn or Mel Brown.

But
his hectic life and alcohol abuse take their toll and his last European
concerts are painful experiences for even his most staunch fans. All his life
he has never been able to keep his dollars in his pocket and to pay his hospital
bills an array of great jazzmen (Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Mann, David Newman, Al
Cohn, Zoot Sims, Gerry Mulligan) help him for his difficult last record, a double-album
(Very Rare) in which T-Bone appears
to be only the shadow of himself. Aaron Walker dies in a Los Angeles hospital
on 16 March 1975, at the early age of 65, leaving a huge musical legacy.

We
have here gathered all his 1960's studio recordings (not those live in
concert).
Thanks to all who helped me to gather those scattered tracks, particularly Marc
Claes whose remarkable personal collection is the foundation of his excellent
blog (The Blues Years).

Thanks very much for this 60's overview. In the 60's he was light and shadow in my opinion, but nevertheless a joy to listen to when he was spirited. (For example with the Jazz at the Philharmonic)http://www65.zippyshare.com/v/DPJvPXxG/file.htmlI think those are the missing titles hopefully. It is mostly from the Crazy Cajun Recordings.Cheers

You are welcome and it was just coincidence, because I remembered that I saw some time ago a collection of some of 60's recordings of T-Bone Walker by someone else and I managed to find it again and those tracks were on it. Hopefully we will manage some day to find Wade Walton's Lp and I keep my fingers crossed, because in terms of Mable Hillery it recently worked. Cheers

Thanks again. It's nice thus to have all the T-Bone's 1960's Tracks. For Wade Walton, it crops up here and there but at unbelievable prices! The worst thing is I had the opportunity to buy the LP during the early 60's at Paris' flea market where all the Bluesvilles were sold in quantities at very low prices but I didn't.It seems that the original sales of this very LP was less than 100...Cheers

Yes, I tried to get Wade Walton also, but way too high prices for me. And besides that those other Prestige/Bluesville Lp's which never were reissued and maybe never will be are also very pricy and hard to find. (Brooks Berry, Alec Sewrad, J.T. Adams, Shirley Griffith, etc.) Luckily I find good rips of them on your and Xyros' blog. Well, you could not have known that they did not see the light of the day even know and also taking into account the amount of other Blues recordings which has been reissued and are not really quality and good ones. For example, I got lucky and I was able to find a good Beale Street Mess Around Lp from Revival which only costed 20 bucks and even was not much played, so ripping it to mp3 was easy.Cheers

Hasbeen: Hi Gerard. I have to take clear and inquire - do you know - is there something harmful or harmless inside both Zippy files - CD 1 and T.Bone missing titles - which can activate my anti-virus program ? In several times and several days both files gave me every time warning ; "This file contains a virus or other malware that will harm your computer". This is strange - cause other zippy-files I do not get that kind of notification (warning) .

In fact this comes from a bug on the most recent versions of Firefox. To avoid it you have to got to: Tools/ options./ security. and uncheck the second tag. In French it is; "bloquer les sites signalés comme étant des sites d'attaque" I'm sorry not to be able to give a proper translation for that phrase. Of course you also can download the files from Chrome without any problem

Guess I'm a little late to the party: the links for CDs 2-4 are gone. Any possible chance of a re-up? CD1, however, sounds real good. I appreciate the variety of sounds in his different bands during this period.-peacenik